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GENERAL MOTORS AND THE DEMISE OF STREETCARS

In February 1974, Bradford Snell, a young government attorney, helped create the myth that General Motors caused the demise of America's streetcar system and that without GM's interference streetcars would be alive and well today. GM may have conspired with others to sell more of their automotive products to transportation companies, but that is irrelevant to his contention that GM helped replace streetcars with economically inferior buses. That they had done -- just as they had earlier sought to replace the horse and buggy with the automobile. The issue is whether or not the buses that replaced the electric streetcars were economically superior. Without GM's interference would the U.S. today have a viable streetcar system? This article makes the case that, GM or not, under a less onerous regulatory environment, buses would have replaced streetcars even earlier than they actually did.